For a cheap fix, you could pull up the carpet, clean the floor, and use concrete stain. Unfortunately, once carpet has been put down, the glue soaks into the concrete and will not give you a good finish.

I like the slate idea, or brick pavers would be cool.

I'd not do slate. I've had it inside a few of the homes I've lived and it's slick when wet and is a bear to keep it looking clean.
I'd be incline to remove the carpeting, paint the floor and then find a nice area rug to give it a more homey feel. I'd keep the rug on the inexpensive side so you could change it out to go with the seasons.

Thank you both for your feedback.

Carol, thanks for the heads up on the slate. I like your idea of paint and area rug....you're right...that's very homey. We use the space a lot Spring thru Fall...almost like a second living room. Plus, it's a pretty inexpensive fix.

Thanks for helping me figure it out.
Kompy

Interface Flor, has some neat, heavy-duty carpet tiles that you can lay down yourself. Most are pretty inexpensive.

There are also those interlocking wood deck tiles that can be used over concrete. There are a bunch of manufacturers for those.

Finally, I really like the synthetic sisal product Bolon. The only distributor I know of is Curran, and you can order it for wall-to-wall installations.

That's not going to get wet is it? Slate isn't slippery when dry, and depending on the style, not even when wet. I have a rough slate floor in my sunroom, and it's not slippery when wet (of course we try not to get it wet since it's indoors). I think slate would be perfect. Or another darker stone like bluestone. If you get a rugged slate, it'll not be slippery even when wet, and feel a little more outdoorsy than the slick dresed slate. Your paintjob is just asking for slate! Just shop somewhere with more selection than the local big box store and pick out something a tad rough.

Whatever you get, get a sample and take it home, see how it looks, and get it wet and see if it's slippery.

Tile would also be nice (but I like slate better). If freezing is a possibility, be sure to get indoor-outdoor tile. It'll be slippery, too, but only when wet.

A friend of mine used slate on exposed porch steps and a tiny patio in New Orleans where things get wet. She said it was great but I bet it got slimy. It looked good though!

I can't believe that house has astroturf! It looks so classy in the photo!

I'll have to check out the carpet tiles....maybe a checkerboard pattern in a blue-ish and green would tie in well with out paint colors.

The interlocking wood tiles sound cool too! Thanks for the great ideas.

Fori, yeah, slat was my first thought too....especially with our color scheme. I won't rule that out either.

Our house was a MAJOR fixer upper. The astroturf has just been at the bottom of the list. We did an addition, all new hvac, plumbing, electric, landscaping...etc. You could barely see our house from the overgrown trees and flower bushes. The backyard was so overgrown, we only had a strip of grass about 5ft wide. We gutted everything and had sod put down.

We're in Ohio, so we do get freezing temperatures. The porch is covered, but snowy boots will definitely get the floor wet!

Investigate what concrete resurfacing firms have to offer (yellow pages).

I understand they can apply all kinds of finished "looks". I recently saw a job that I would describe as "flagstone with sand colored grout" and it looked perfect. To some it might have even been "better than the real thing" since it was perfectly level and without blemishes.

My neighbor had her concrete front porch floor re-surfaced to look like the brick of the c. 1910 house. It looks great and seems to have held up well. I think a gray slate-look floor would look nice on your porch. You could put down a nice area rug in the summer, roll it up before winter and store it. I'm sure the porch is helpful in the winter if you have a lot of snow boots coming into the house.

My brick house was also built in 1910 and my open front porch floor is finished in terrazo tile.

Around here (Rochester NY) many many enclosed porches in homes of the vintage of yours have square terra cotta (is terra cotta a kind of burnt red?) tiles, sometimes with a pattern tile running around the edge. The squares are about 5 inches on a side. The finish tends to be matte, but whether that is intentional or due to age I do not know.

When I redo the floor of our bird room, that's what's going in.

What about the 'paints' that look/feel like stone? You could even grid it off to give the look of tiles. I can't think of the brand name off hand.... but I have seen it in Home Depot in the same aisle as the concrete stains.

We are going to use it in our porch... it's supposed to be very durable (can be used on concrete steps outside and withstand the weather/shovelling of snow etc.). And has enough texture to not get slippery when wet.

sorry I haven't checked back in a while. Thanks for the idea of concrete resurfacing idea. I will check into that! Also like the terra cotta tile idea. Our craftsman style fireplace has these greenish/reddish tiles. I would love to find a replica of that!

Thanks also for the paint idea lil geek. I guess there's new things out there that I should check on.

Teresa, your house is adorable!!!!

What about putting interlocking wood deck tiles over the top of your existing porch such as those from swiftdeck or ezydeck. You can just lay these over the top so there's very little work in volved and you'll end up with new wood surface.

Here is a link that might be useful: Swiftdeck

We have a small cement back porch that is open to the weather but does have a roof over it...and the gray paint is peeling off and looks terrible. What are our options for redoing its floor as low-budget as is reasonable? The porch was this way when we bought the house.

How difficult is it to get that ugly stuck-on carpet off? We have it on our front porch (PO) it's worn and coming up in some area's and stuck like a dicken's in others. It wraps over the steps too. We are going to be putting this 1940's home on the market and this carpet will kill any sale!

Depends on how well it was glued down. Our rear porch had it, and after struggling with it for about an hour we tied a rope around the area we were able to loosen and tied the other end to my truck bumper and ripped it out! Removing the old adhesive wasn't any fun, but it's definitely doable. I think it took us a full day of putting on remover/thinner(?) & scraping many times over. The next day we were able to tile. BTW, I'm a construction manager and we use the rough multi-colored slate on exterior porches & balconys a lot. The type we use is available at the big box store as well. I would recommend with any outdoor slate or tile to use an epoxy grout as regular grout in wet outdoor areas can effervece (? forgot how to spell today), meaning it will produce a milky/powdery residue that takes months to go away. Doesn't always happen, but it can.

I also have that lovely green carpet on my covered front porch. Fortunately, I have pulled it back almost all the way off and it appears to be coming off really easy. The open steps and walkway also had carpet, but it was removed several years ago. I would really like to tile the porch, steps, and walkway in that beautiful old, shiny reddish-terra cotta color tile that was so popular on porches back in the "old days". Does anybody out there know what this tile is called and where it might be found today? Also, how durable is tile for outside use?

I have tile in my porch and on cool mornings it sweats Alot.We're gonna close it in and were putting radiant heat under the tile.